Skip to main content

I Dare Ya

I'm hopeless. Smitten. Devoted. Enamored. Fanatical. Infatuated. Wildly in love.

My husband and I will celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary this Sunday, and while I can honestly say that the above list still applies to my love for him (yes, there are times when I look at him and still feel the fluttering of butterflies one would have thought long gone), I'm talking about someone I met just this past summer. She's of average height for her age (which isn't saying much - munchkins would have to look down to see her), thin, bald, and has eight tiny teeth barely poking through her gums. Her only form of communication right now is through facial expressions and strategically-tuned vocals. She can't enunciate words. She can't walk, much less ride a bike or drive a car. She can't even feed herself.


And yet I'm beside myself in her presence. When we're apart, I have to tear myself away from pictures of her and make myself be a mature, responsible adult. It's not easy.

I saw her this past Saturday. At six and a half months, she's into grabbing cheeks and chins and noses. While her mommy fed her dinner, I squatted down beside her chair and let her have her way with me. I didn't care that her little grip actually hurt. She looked at me, couldn't take her eyes off me. Her barely controlled eye/hand coordination was directed at me. I know she was just exploring, but I was in heaven. Since Saturday night, I have called to mind again and again her round little face, her beautiful baby blues, her arm jerkily reaching out to me. Each time I think of it, my heart melts. I could live off that moment for weeks.

Silly, isn't it? I know, and yet I can't help it. I'm so in love that any attention she shows me thrills me.

And it makes me wonder. If in my imperfect love, I feel this way, is it possible that God - in His perfect love - feels this way (and then some) about us? Could it be that His heart thrills when we turn our eyes toward Him, when we reach out to Him, even if it's just to explore His face? Can we even fathom being loved by a God whose heart melts when we look at Him? Can we grasp being loved like that by our Creator? Do we dare believe it?

Go ahead. Look at Him. Dare to believe that He loves you. Dare to believe that you thrill His heart. It will change your life.

Comments

  1. In order to inspire others about faith, what does it look like if we dare like you challenge us to dare? What does it look like in a person's life if they believe that God truly is crazy about them, has their back, won't let them be destroyed by the enemy, loves them more than they could ever imagine?

    I have been asking myself this question, not so that I would have a list of things to do in order to prove that I believe, but that I would be inspired to believe.

    Maybe we can't answer the question for anyone else but ourselves. That is an interesting thought. Only God's created can answer for themselves what would it be like if we really believed, because only in that answer would we find what the new creation in a person's heart thinks. And if we find that, we find God!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Believing the Lies

My husband and I recently watched The Help - a story about a group of African American women who worked as maids in Jackson, Mississippi in the '60s. One of the protagonists works for a woman "who got no b'ness havin' babies." This woman, this family maid and nanny, tells her little two year old ward regularly, "You is pretty. You is smart. You is impor'ant." How difficult it is for us to believe that about ourselves - really, to believe anything good about ourselves. I always try to be my raw self when I write a blog post. Today is no exception. So I confess that I've been drowning in a storm of lies lately. My head knows they're lies, and I could easily tell anyone else in the same place that they're lies, but I haven't been able to get a grip. There have been so many of them coming at me at once. It seems that I just break the surface, gulp some fresh air of truth then get pulled back under. One thing I know: the enemy of our ...

Tricia's Return (my first ICL assignment for 13-17 year olds)

I stormed down the hall and slammed the door. I’d had enough! Dumping my books out of my backpack, I began shoving in clothes – anything I could grab. I dug through the junk on the floor of my closet and found my stash – my life’s savings. I shoved it on top of my clothes. In the midst of this frenzy, I heard a soft knock on my door. "Tricia?" It was my mom. “What now?” I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice. She was just going to launch into another tirade. Her list of my shortcomings was endless, and I didn’t want to hear them anymore. I didn’t open the door; I climbed out my window, backpack in tow, grabbed my bike and took off for the bus station. Jeremy didn’t know I was coming. He’d be so surprised. I couldn’t wait to see him! We’ve been together for a year; but since his family moved to St. Louis four months ago, we haven’t seen each other. We haven’t even been able to talk much He'd made the varsity soccer team; and with all the games and practices, he hadn’t h...

Resting...Resting?

A few weeks ago, my husband and I had dinner with our daughter-in-law and two of our grand children. My daughter-in-law lost her job a couple of months ago. I wanted an update on current job prospects or plans, so I asked, "What are you doing these days?" Her answer was simple and yet incredibly profound.              Resting. (Is that even a word in the American lexicon?) I'm proud of her, and of them, for making the decision that it's time for her to rest. She's been in hyper-drive for all the years I've known her (over 16).  That word has haunted me since she spoke it. Resting. What would happen if I...if you...gave it a try?  In Psalm 23: 6a, David says Surely goodness and mercy will follow me. In K.J. Ramsey's The Lord is My   Courage (page 240), she tells us that our English word, "follow," doesn't convey the power behind the original Hebrew word that David used (radaph). She tells us that radaph means "to pursue, chase, and pers...